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Ashborn	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 36151 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Two--Loquor Animalibus

            "Bring me the rosemary." Severus held out his hand without looking, and not simply because the flat green surface of the potion could not be left unwatched at the moment. This was as much a test of the newest automaton he had created as it was of his brewing skills.

            Silence, and then a slither and a click, a slither and a click, and an ending clack. The pinch of rosemary ended up in his hand, and Severus turned it over and watched the herb land in the potion. An expanding circle of red disturbed the green where it fell. Severus gave a hard smile. The theory that the Potions master Samuel Kibbley had propounded, that rosemary was not a powerful enough magical substance to alter an acid-based potion, was thus disproven.

            "Well done," Severus said, a shared compliment, and turned around to consider his automaton.

            It resembled a hound, if hounds walked on their hind feet and were made entirely of gleaming metal. Severus had chosen silver for this one's beginning and then tarnished it, so that it would not reflect too much in its sides and dazzle or distract him during sensitive creations. He had retained two glowing red gems for eyes, but exiled the floppy ears that he had begun with and made the jaws longer and narrower, with picks for teeth. The forepaws extended upright and flat in front of it, to serve as holding trays, and the tail, the source of the slithering noise, ended in another.

            Severus decided, as he usually did now, that the automaton's design could not be improved, and nodded. "Fetch me ink and parchment," he said, and the hound made its way to the far side of the room. It could move faster, Severus thought, but he would have to redesign it completely for that.

            Or, better, begin anew with another. By the time that the hound returned with ink and parchment, Severus had already started to envision a snake-shaped one, and he passed most of the morning hours in drawing.

*

            "Exercise, Potter."

            Bellatrix Lestrange had woken him that morning with the blank declaration. Harry had stood up and prepared to go outside because it was easier than arguing about it. He'd chosen a fairly heavy shirt and trousers, but if it turned out to be warmer than he thought it was, he could always alter them. He'd got good at quick, rough Transfigurations of that kind during the years that he fought the war.

            The "exercise room," as Bellatrix insisted on calling it even though it was outside, was a simple courtyard of bare grass enclosed by grey stone walls as blank as her voice. Harry walked in circles around it a few times, watching her over his shoulder, expecting her to call him in at any moment. But Bellatrix just stood where she'd planted herself, by the door to the Ashborn complex, and stared at him. Harry shrugged a little. He reckoned she'd been told to allow him some more time. She wasn't imaginative enough to come up with all these suggestions by herself.

            In fact, he thought as he bent down and began to do some stretches, none of the Ashborn seemed at all imaginative. Their eyes, their faces, the way they moved, the way they focused on Snape (and maybe Malfoy) to the exclusion of all else, their absolutely identical clothing...they weren't encouraged to have much in the way of individual personality. That could be a weakness. If they needed Snape to command them, then what would happen when he wasn't around, or occupied with something else? Harry thought that Snape would be smart enough to set up a command hierarchy in that case, probably stemming from Malfoy, but there must also be times that Malfoy was busy or distracted, and then who else could take over?

            He recognized the direction his thoughts were taking and stopped himself with a wry smile. He had promised not to foment rebellion. He didn't think the Vow would take action unless he decided to do something. Still. Not a good habit to get into.

            He lay on his back and made cycling motions with his legs up in the air, purely for the sake of something to do.

            Something to do. Yes. That was the problem. He had promised to be a good little hostage, but he couldn't live on letters from his friends and the occasional chances to annoy Malfoy, who would probably keep out of his way most of the time. He needed an activity that would occupy him, either his brain and his hands or simply his hands, while leaving him time to dream.

            Huh.

            What, then?

            Harry rolled back to one knee, and that was when he spotted the bird watching him. It perched on the wall above his head, a white raven with brilliant black eyes. When it saw him looking back, it bobbed its head in what might have been a greeting and stalked a bit closer along the wall.

            From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Bellatrix lifting her wand. The bird seemed to know the motion well. It spread its wings and sprang into the air with a mocking caw before soaring out of sight.

            "What was that?" Harry asked. She hadn't shown an inclination to answer questions from him so far, but then again, he hadn't really tried to ask her any.

            Bellatrix turned her head and stared as if she had forgotten his presence. Then she grunted and seemed to decide that Harry speaking didn't violate any of her orders. "The sign of an enemy," she said.

            "An Animagus?" Harry looked with more interest in the direction where the raven had disappeared. Speaking to someone outside the Ashborn and their strict, joyless routine sounded good right now.

            "Not human, not from a human," Bellatrix said shortly, and gestured. "Food."

            I think I liked her better when she was mad and babbling, Harry decided as he followed her. And anyway, what did she mean? That bird was too intelligent to be anything but an Animagus, someone's familiar, or a messenger bird like an owl.

            Only when he was eating his breakfast--toast, fresh fruit, scones, milk--did he realize what else Bellatrix's words might have meant.

            Not human, not from a human. But an enemy.

            It could have come from a delegation of magical creatures.

*

            Draco leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The meditation rooms were supposed to be conducive to clear thoughts, and that might even have been the case if he could think about anything but the way that he and Severus had tumbled across the bed last night, before Severus pinned him down and began to lick his--

            Draco pulled himself from the memory. Whether or not he needed to have a clear mind to accomplish anything worthwhile, as Severus often insisted, was an unresolved philosophical question; what was true was that he shouldn't be thinking of what his lord and lover had done to him while trying to write a letter to the woman he hoped would agree to bear his child.

            He opened his eyes and stared at the blank ream of white parchment in front of him. He tried to think of it as filled with brilliant light, the light of opportunity, instead of the threatening, well, blankness that it seemed to have sometimes.

            Then he sighed and picked up the quill. No matter how long he considered, he had a feeling that he wouldn't come up with anything better than what he'd already thought of.

            My Lady Jocelyn,

            I am sure that you will find an application from someone outside the circle of your family strange. I have learned that you are part of a tradition that follows the older ways, the culture that most of the pure-bloods--including my family--abandoned because it was too hard to keep up and we wanted more power and influence. Under normal circumstances, you would expect to marry one of your illustrious, distant cousins and continue the traditions within the safe circle of the community.

            I am not asking you for traditional fidelis marriage. I am asking you for a filius marriage.

            As for my qualifications, I have one of the oldest pure-blood ancestries in England, and I am the second-in-command of Severus Snape, who controls the Ashborn. Any child you bore for me would have a secure environment to grow up in, and the protection of guards who literally could not betray him. I would make sure that he knew of both sides of his heritage and had a choice in the form of his name, as long as Malfoy remained in it. He might visit your family whenever he wished to, you wished to, and safe transport could be arranged. He would never be exposed to Muggles or Mudbloods except at his own choice.

            For your inconvenience during the nine months of pregnancy and the birth, I am prepared to pay a tenth of the Galleons in the Malfoy vaults. Or you may have your choice of bloodline artifacts.

            I am currently involved in the effort to learn the ways that we have abandoned over the years. There are certain taints that cannot be scrubbed away, certain movements that cannot be undone. For example, many of the Ashborn have Squib ancestors, and many of our ancient documents have been destroyed, lost, or left locked up in the languages and runes we no longer speak. But as we recover them, we will create a new culture, and my son would be the recipient of a tradition vital for its newness. This new culture will not be lost to Muggles, or given up for temporary short-term advantages. Our children will be reared in it. The Ashborn will cooperate together as teachers, as foster parents, as partners.

            You see that I have already learned one of the most important lessons that the ancient pure-bloods taught, the one we gave up first when we began to grasp for the slight advantages that our single families could earn: the lesson of cooperation...

            Someone knocked on his door. Draco hastily lifted his quill away so that the ink wouldn't blot on the paper and turned to scowl at it. "What is it?" he snapped.

            The door opened, and Fenrir Greyback entered, bowing until his head nearly swept the ground. It wasn't sarcastic as it once would have been, Draco knew, not after Severus had been after him with the Mark and with Legilimency, any more than his aunt Bellatrix was still mad and pretending to be sane. "Pardon, Lord Malfoy," he said. "You wished to be informed when anything strange happened concerning the Potter boy."

            "So I did." Draco rose to his feet, his heart blurring in his ears. So soon? If Potter had broken the Vow, it would have killed him, but he has found some other means of causing trouble so soon? "What happened?"

            Greyback gave another bow. "He has entered the library, and begun looking up information on magical creatures. And Bellatrix saw a white raven near him this morning."

            Draco narrowed his eyes. If Potter knew what he was doing, such actions should fall under the Vow that forbade him to stir up rebellion among the Ashborn or seek their destruction. But he might not know what he was doing.

            In which case, it was up to Draco to prevent him from finding the wrong books.

            I should have removed them from the library already, he thought, as he launched into a rapid trot. But who could have thought that Potter would actually willingly read something?

*

            Only when Harry stepped into the Ashborn's library did he realize that he had no idea where to go about finding the information he wanted. He stood there and stared around rather helplessly.

            He hadn't actually known how the Hogwarts library was organized, either, of course. But there he had had Hermione's help.

            And you'll never have it again.

            Harry quelled the thoughts that followed the same way he had quelled missing her and Ron during his holidays with the Dursleys, and set out to look.

            The library was a broad room with walls made of the same grey stone that the Ashborn favored everywhere that they weren't favoring black. Harry made a mental note to decorate his rooms, too; he thought he would go mad if he had to look at those colors and nothing else every day. A map on the far wall looked for a minute like it would be an organizational chart of the library, but when Harry studied it more closely, he discovered it wasn't. He turned around and observed the ranks of "reading benches" marching away into the distance, the stacks of books behind them, the shelves in the walls, the free-standing crates stuffed with books, and sighed.

            Well. They might have books of the same sort piled together, right? He could check on that fairly easily. And if that was the case, then he should be able to move quickly through the piles by just looking at the top book and determining whether it was about something helpful or not.

            To his relief, whoever had set the place up had been methodical enough to do that. The first books he found, on Potions brewing, plant identification, Older Choral Songs of Western Europe, German, Ancient Runes, and a bunch of other things he didn't bother keeping track of, didn't help. But it did give him a few less tomes to sort through. Sneezing and coughing on the dust, Harry worked his way further in.

            He finally encountered an interesting book about halfway down the first set of shelves opposite the map. Harry pulled out the book that said Lesser-Known Magical Creatures and noted that the author was Newt Scamander. That might mean this was more of an introductory sort of book, like the magical creatures book he'd used in Hogwarts, but even that would be more than he had now. Harry turned back to the mouth of the aisle so that he could see the book more clearly.

            He had time to make out that the cover was red, tough hide of some kind, dusted with gilt from the letters of the title, before someone called out peremptorily, "Potter!"

            Malfoy. Harry rolled his eyes and tucked the book under his arm. He needed better light to read by, anyway.

            Malfoy stood beside the largest bench in the library, his hand pressed flat against the table in front of it as though he assumed that would make him more intimidating. Harry thought unexpectedly of the first Death Eater he'd killed. He'd been a jumped-up, pompous little brat from Durmstrang who'd posed exactly like that.

            Well. No matter. It wasn't as though Harry could kill Malfoy. He laid the book down on the table between them and watched Malfoy, waiting for some kind of cue. If there were rules that he needed to obey other than the ones implicit in his Vows, no one had explained them to him.

            "What are you doing here, Potter?" Malfoy demanded.

            "Looking for something to read," Harry said. He didn't need to say anything about Malfoy's lack of observational ability this time; a slow glance from Malfoy to the book was sufficient.

            Malfoy's face took on a flush that looked rather like bruises. "I didn't ask you that, Potter," he said.

            "Yes, you did," Harry pointed out. There was only so much stupidity he could take. "Your exact words were--"

            Malfoy banged his hand down; Harry's fucked-up brain reminded him of where the door was and told him a way to break Malfoy's neck. Harry ignored it, as usual, in favor of focusing on Malfoy's latest attempt to sound like he was special and important to Harry. "I meant," he said, between grinding teeth, "did you ask anyone if you could go the library? Did you ask which books you could touch, and which books you can't? If you didn't, then you are dangerously close to violation of your Vows!"

            "Did you know that when you shout, your face turns pink like a rabbit's nose?" Harry asked in interest.

            Malfoy stared at him in silent outrage, which Harry had to admit he preferred to shouting outrage. He glanced down at the book, and was pleased to see that it was thicker and more complicated-looking than he'd thought. "I asked Bellatrix how to get to the library," he said. "She would have prevented me if it was something I wasn't supposed to do. She's too loyal to Snape to let me betray him."

            Malfoy went on staring. Harry shrugged. He could answer the git's questions just as well if there wasn't a response. "And if you didn't get the dangerous books out of here before someone could find them and use them against you, you're stupider than I thought. You're begging to have someone bring you down."

            There was a silent struggle across the table from him, which Harry watched in interest. Then Malfoy said stiffly, "Severus is not stupid. He left the organization of the library up to me, which makes it my fault if you have touched something you should not have."

            "Yeah, organization," Harry muttered, with another look at the carelessly stacked books. "You could call it that, if you were desperate for a word."

            "You still shouldn't be in here," Malfoy said. "I forbid you to come in again without an escort."

            Harry met his eyes and smiled. "You're about the safest escort I could ask for, aren't you? You're the second-in-command of the Ashborn."

            Malfoy blinked, as if those weren't words that he was used to hearing. Then again, Harry reckoned, if Snape had compelled all the Ashborn to be loyal to him with mind magic, they wouldn't see a need to flatter Snape's lieutenant. "I didn't give you permission to be here," he said at last.

            When all else fails, retreat into haughtiness. Harry manfully held back a roll of his eyes. "But you're here now," he said. "And it's only one book. And if I don't do something productive, I'll go mad. A mad Potter could cause a lot of trouble for you even if I do stay within my Vows."

            "Is that a threat?" Malfoy's voice skittered up into something a lot like a pig's squeal.

            "Yes," Harry said. "Sort of. I won't attack anyone who doesn't attack me first, but I could cause other kinds of havoc. I need something to do, Malfoy."

            "Why?" Malfoy looked as though Harry was attempting to cram a lemon down his throat and he wasn't enjoying the experience. "For once in your entire life, no one is depending on you to show up and save the day. Everyone involved knows that you sold yourself--" he sneered "--to us. You're never going to see the light of the sun again unless we let you. I think most people in that position would take the chance to relax."

            "I'm not most people," Harry said, and smiled at the next word that came to his lips. It had been an insult for most of his life; it was about to become a source of strength. "I'm freakishly lucky, freakishly young to have fought the way I did, and freakishly talented at things I'd never done before I came to Hogwarts, like riding a broom. What would make you think I'm normal in this much?"

*

            Draco frowned. Potter hadn't acted the way he expected so far, and he kept not acting like it. He wasn't the brave, noble Gryffindor martyr praising himself; he wasn't the sulky teenager moping around and trying to make the rest of he world feel sorry for him. He seemed to half-invite Draco to mock him, and spurn the mockery at the same time, if the way his eyes and teeth flashed were any indication.

            What was Draco to do with him, then?

            One thing was clear. This mask Potter was wearing was a mask, and if he could be half as dangerous as Draco's instincts said he could, that meant he needed to know the reality.

            "Fine," he said. "Read your book, Potter. But you ought to know that I'll be with you the entire time you do it."

            Potter nodded, looking unsurprised. "Fine. Do you want to go into my rooms, or into your rooms, or outside, then?"

            "As if I would invite you into my rooms," Draco said, and lowered his voice in response to that implied threat before he could stop himself. "They are my private place, and more than that, they're Severus's private place."

            He couldn't define the expression that crossed Potter's face at that, though of course he immediately wanted to try. "All right," Potter said. "Why don't we go outside, then? The glitter in Bellatrix's eyes is a bit less creepy when you're seeing it in full sun." He began to walk.

            "Does the relationship between me and Severus disgust you, then?" Draco asked, hurrying to catch up with him, glad when he did. Then he was the one who, because he was taller, could force Potter to match his strides and look silly doing it. Potter didn't seem to know he looked silly, though, which took a lot of the pleasure out of it. "You ought to know he wouldn't care if it does."

            "Not for the reasons you think," Potter said, head bent as though he wanted to study the ground in front of him for any flaw that would cause him to trip. He wouldn't find it, of course. The Ashborn kept the corridors constantly swept and smooth. "I saw enough people fucking during the war to relieve tension that I don't care if it's two men together, or two women, or what. And I saw greater age gaps dismissed, too."

            "What, then?" Draco pressed. He couldn't believe that Potter, of all people, would care that Severus had once been his mentor and in some ways was still, though it was one of the objections Draco could imagine his mother raising.

            "I don't think," Potter said, sounding as though he picked his way through a battlefield littered with bones, which he well might, "that anyone deserves to be compelled into sleeping with someone else. If Snape controls you like he controls Bellatrix, you didn't have a free choice, even if you think you do now. I'm sorry for you, that's all." He gave Draco a single, intolerably clear glance from those bright green eyes.

            Draco tried for long seconds to come up with words for how insulted he was, and at last resorted to a bewildered shake of his head and slow words. Slow words for the slow of wit. "Severus never had to. You've had a look at him as he is now--powerful, strong, and contained with it. Who wouldn't want him?"

            "Someone who saw him as he was the night he killed Dumbledore," Potter said quietly.

            "You have no idea what that cost him," Draco began with real heat. If Potter was going to dare to hint that he was a better person than Severus because of that--

            "I know it was more complicated," Potter said. "But I would always wonder about that rage he showed. I would always wonder if he was lying to me with a smooth face. I would always watch him command other people with Legilimency and wonder if he did that to me, and he was so good at it that I just couldn't sense it." He shrugged and tilted his head from side to side. "But that's me. If you're happy with him, good for you."

            "But you still pity me," Draco bit out. His emotions were swooping and swirling and churning around in his lungs now. No one had disapproved of the relationship he and Severus had so far; Draco's parents were out of the picture before it happened, and the Ashborn cared about what Severus told them to care about. Bloody Potter. Trust him to get me all stirred up.

            "Of course I do," Potter said, looking him full in the face as if he thought that would make it easier for him to use Legilimency on Draco. Draco blinked and controlled the impulse to look away. He would never give Potter that much fuel to use against him, never mind that it would be a sight of his weakness. "But why should that matter to you? I thought nothing I did mattered to you, as long as I wasn't looking in the library without permission." And he smirked at Draco, which must have been something he learned to do during the war; Draco had never seen him do it, or seen him interact with anyone who could have taught him to do.

            "Come on," Draco said shortly, and led the way outside.

            Only later did he remember that he had never made the decision to do that. Potter had. Or rather, he'd suggested and Draco had acceded, instead of fighting the way he thought he should have done.

            It made no sense. Draco wasn't in the habit of obeying anyone but Severus, since the Ashborn would do anything he asked of them.

            And Potter did nothing interesting the entire afternoon, simply leaned on one elbow and read as though he shared some secret bloodline with his know-it-all Mudblood friend. Once, he did roll over and hold the book above him so that he could read it that way, and Draco tensed, ready to move if he had to. But Potter rolled back the other way, shaking his head when he saw Draco watching him.

            "Thought that might let me read the print better," he said. "It didn't."

            So it went. Potter was ordinary, or acted ordinary, and didn't question, when the gong for dinner sounded, when he would be allowed to eat in the hall with the rest of the Ashborn. He returned the book to Draco and then fell in behind Bellatrix to go to his rooms with a thoughtful expression on his face.

            Draco kept the book. Knowing Potter, he had found some way around the Vow that forbade him from stirring up rebellion, and Draco would keep the book in case he had to find clues to that plan inside it later.

            If he couldn't find them, then he was sure Severus would. The man had the most exquisitely suspicious mind.

*

            Draco slid into his seat beside Severus looking flushed and determined. Severus raised an eyebrow. He had heard of no incident in the fortress that day that would demand such emotion. Draco looked the way he did when he used to burst into the potions lab with an announcement for Severus. Severus had trained him out of that by tightening his control over the Ashborn. Now Draco had confidence that they would be able to handle any crisis of defense that arose, and Draco could command them in the rest.

            "What happened?" he asked, and settled in to hear some childish tale of woe about runes. Draco wanted to translate Argellus Black's book badly enough to spend hours of every day at it. If his odd reactions did not relate to the tome, then Severus might actually be interested in what he had done.

            "Nothing," Draco said, helping himself to lima beans with stabs nearly hard enough to break his fork. Severus brushed his hand across Draco's wrist. They had no guest from the Ministry this evening, but it was as well that they got used to practicing the right kind of restraint and courtesy. Then, their mask would not falter in front of those who still had reason to think them bloodthirsty lunatics.

            Draco scowled, but took the next few beans more gently, and sagged back in his chair. "Potter went to the library," he said grimly. "He got a book on magical creatures, and I supervised his reading of it. But he acted as though he really was only interested in reading it. It was a bloody boring afternoon."

            "Language," Severus said, with no more than a touch of frost in his voice. He was caught between amusement at the thought of Potter reading and amusement at Draco's reaction. "Why should his reading material concern you?"

            Draco turned around and stared at him. "You mean--Severus, you're going to let him study? I thought he was just supposed to stay in his room, and sleep, and eat, and exercise."

            Severus took a few bites of his kidney pie before he responded. Draco did not deserve to have his impatience immediately rewarded. "I would put more guards on him if he did that alone," he said at last, when Draco had looked down at his plate and was muttering under his breath in French. He also did not wish to encourage tendencies towards rude language. "I would be sure that he was plotting something. Potter does not cage his restlessness so easily. I would rather that he channel it towards reading than anything else."

            "Even though a white raven made contact with him this morning?" Draco challenged.

            Severus narrowed his eyes, and said nothing. That was enough to make Draco understand something of what he had done. He looked down at his plate, and turned red enough to make himself unattractive, and began to mash his beans into his pie.

            "That should have been the first thing you told me," Severus said. "Do you understand? Instead, you distracted me with rambling thoughts on Potter's book-reading, and no one thought to report the raven to me."

            Draco bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Severus," he said, nearly humbly enough to make up for his mistake. "I just--I thought that someone else had told you. Bellatrix is loyal enough to you."

            Severus sighed. It was a useful misconception for his enemies to have, that he had done the impossible by bending Bellatrix Lestrange's will to his and healing her insanity, but it had gone too far when Draco believed the lie.

            "She is," he said, "but she has no initiative. You know that the bindings I placed in her mind collect and control her thoughts in carefully chosen patterns. Those patterns activate only in response to orders. She could not have told me of the raven unless you had commanded her to."

            "Sorry, Severus," Draco whispered. "I'll try better next time."

            Severus made his body language a bit more welcoming by leaning back on his chair and sipping from his mug of ale. He did not wish to incite one of Draco's frequent bouts of self-flagellation, which were tiresome to deal with and required the expenditure, or at least the manufacture, of emotions that Severus did not feel often. "You know what the white raven means?" he asked.

            Draco seized the offered words as the olive branch they were, and beamed at him. "A sign from the centaurs," he said. "The raven has eyes as black as the night skies and feathers as white as the moon."

            Severus nodded, allowing a dry smile to slip through as acknowledgment that Draco had done well in looking up the symbolism. "Yes. But as of yet, the raven has only been sighted in flight. Did it perch near Potter when it examined him?"

            By dint of patient questioning, he learned all that Draco knew about the sighting, which was not much. He knew that he would have to question Potter if he wanted the pertinent details, or simply Legilimize the boy. By the time that dinner was finished, he had decided on the latter option. He made his way to Potter's rooms, having sent the impatient, bouncing Draco to wait in the suite they shared. He thought it best to meet with Draco on neutral ground this evening, not territory that belonged to only one of them.

            He did not expect his confrontation with Potter to take long. The moment Bellatrix, on guard at the door, saw him, she bowed and cringed and looked up at him with adoration in her eyes that would shame a dog. Severus hid his grimace from long habit. He had not been able to break her of the need to worship someone; the most he had been able to effect there was to transfer it from the late Dark Lord to himself.

            "How has Potter behaved?" he asked her, and listened to a stream of details that included eating all his food, doing strange exercises in the morning and evening rounds, making no noise, going to sleep when Bellatrix didn't expect him to, and going to the library for nefarious purposes. Bellatrix did not put it that way, of course; she no longer knew the word "nefarious," or anything near as long. But Severus was a past master at translating the simple language used by those around him into more mellifluous words. He had, after all, taught Neville Longbottom.

            Satisfied at last that the boy had done nothing that even trod near the edge of breaking his Vows, he turned the knob and entered. He hoped that Potter would be startled. Severus would teach him to think that he would have any privacy among the Ashborn, any space that was his.

            But Potter, lying on the bed, simply looked up at him. His eyes were somnolent, devoid of interest in all senses of the word. He didn't look as though he could be bothered to hate Severus, as that would require effort. "Snape," he said, and started to turn back to the wall he'd been staring at.

            Severus did not waste the opportunity. He held out his wand and said softly, "Legilimens."

            He passed as easily through the barriers of Potter's mind as he ever had. The memories stormed past him, softening and squirting like feces. Severus curled his lip and reached out--

            And something knife-edged hit him, hard enough to knock him out of Potter's head. He looked up, ready to see the Vow choking Potter for striking at him when he hadn't done it in self-defense.

            But he still stood where he had been a few moments before, and Potter's wand wasn't in his hand. He lay where he had been, and watched Severus with a twisted smile.

            "I wondered when you would try that," he said conversationally.

            "What was that, Potter?" Severus had waited until his voice was no longer breathless, the way he was sure it would have been had he tried to speak at first. The cold silence had the side-effect of intimidating most people he would use it with.

            Potter--because he was always the exception, marked by fate, treated specially by Dumbledore, fawned on by the press, able to kill a wizard that no one else could have touched, and Severus felt a savage hatred for that difference moving through him--shook his head and didn't look at all intimidated. "My memories from the war. They have that effect on anyone who tries to Legilimize me. That's just the way it is," he added, with a look of condescension and pity that Severus would have wiped off his face with a detention if they still shared their old roles.

            But they did not, and Severus was coming to realize, too late, what that meant. The realization unsettled him. He made mistakes with Draco, but that was natural enough, when Draco was still growing out of youth and Severus had made the choice not to bind him as he had all the Ashborn. He made mistakes with potions, too subtle and complicated an art for anyone to learn all the intricacies of in forty years.

            But Potter was neither subtle and complicated nor someone he chose to indulge out of amusement. The source of his misperception must be somewhat else. Severus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them to look at Potter again.

            He realized part of the problem at once. He had been thinking of Potter during dinner, and at other times, as a boy. What lay on the bed staring at him now was a man.

            Not that Potter had grown much taller or broader; not that he had gained a mature sense of humor or seriousness. But he had acquired the trick of looking someone in the eye that Severus associated with adults, who had been through enough conflicts that they did not assume they must win every one.

            It was a look that he associated with himself, and Dumbledore, and the way that Lily had looked by the end of school.

            He broke himself of the bad habit of comparing Potter to his mother by arching one eyebrow and saying, "And those memories do not destroy your mind?"

            "They come in my dreams," Potter said. "Nightmares," he added, perhaps because he believed that Severus did not understand him. In this case, Severus's silence had served its purpose, encouraging its victim to speak more. "I think that's why they don't trouble me during the day."

            "You are exactly as stupid as you ever were," Severus said.

            "And you wanted to read my stupid thoughts?" Potter tipped his head to one side, the motion like a curious bird's. "You've picked up a masochistic streak I didn't expect. I always thought of you as pure sadist."

            Severus ground his teeth and decided that he would not rise to the boy's bait. From the sight of Potter's lips curving, he had caught the grinding noise and knew that he had irritated Severus, if not how profoundly. Severus spoke words that should make Potter forget about the petty triumph he would otherwise claim and gloat over. "Were you aware of what the white raven who saw you this morning represents?"

            He knew the raven was a striking-looking bird, though he had caught no more than one glimpse himself. It should be easy to spin a tale of death omens, one of the tales that actually existed about them, and convince Potter that once again he was marked out by fate, though this time in a way that should render him cautious rather than courageous.

            "Yes," Potter said.

            Severus jarred to a stop, and this time he couldn't hide it. He stared at Potter, who stared back.

            The triumph that he had expected from Potter's eyes wasn't present, however. Potter sighed and stretched as though he was attempting to shed some burden that had sat on his spine for too long. "I'd heard about ravens as messengers before. It was important when we went to find--well, it's a long story and not relevant. And I reckon this raven is a messenger from some non-human magical creatures. The way that Bellatrix talked about it, it couldn't be anything else."

            I must caution Bellatrix to restrict her conversation only to Potter's food, exercise, and sleep, Severus thought.

            Then he remembered what Draco had said about Potter going to the library, and realized that even that might not be sufficient. If Potter asked her a question or confronted her with an order that did not relate to one of those three topics, she would have no option but to attack him or to come and ask Severus to interpret her orders for her. Potter, like Draco, like Severus, had free will, which was unusual among the Ashborn.

            I should have thought of that before I agreed to bring him here, Severus thought. He hated being pulled up by mistakes the way he constantly had been by Potter this evening.

            And he disliked and distrusted the reluctant stirring of interest he could feel under his calm watchfulness. His dream had been to have the Ashborn run themselves like a perfectly-made machine while he lived in a world where he did nothing but brew, care for himself, and have sex with Draco. Potter was a broken cog in the machine--no, dust. Severus could envision no circumstances under which Potter might have been a fitting cog, after all.

            Potter had been rambling on while Severus was thinking of the future, his words soft and warm. "If I could speak to a messenger, what would I learn? Why would they send one to me, anyway? They must know that I'm not going to be leading any wars from in here. And if they think there's something special about me still, then I'll tell them the truth quickly enough..."

            "You should," Severus said, harshly. Potter glanced up at him with wide eyes, and Severus quietly revised his opinion. There was more than a touch of the child in this "man," still. He could hardly believe Potter had been considered competent to lead and win a war. Assassination of the Dark Lord, yes, but assassination was a coward's task. How Albus could have thought...

            That he was the assassin of Albus again brought him to a halt. He took a step forwards. "Remember that you swore to foment no rebellions, Potter."

            Potter shook his head, a look of contempt on his face. "What would magical creatures want me for if they did intend that? They don't have any reason to rebel against the Ashborn, unless you plan to hunt them all down for Potions ingredients or something. It's the Ministry they would want to stop. It's the Ministry who's treated them poorly."

            Severus had not considered that. Potter kept introducing factors that he had not considered.

            He hated that.

            "You will have no contact with the creatures if they come to you, Potter," he said. "I will have your word on that."

            Potter surged upright on the bed, glaring at him. He had got a few inches of growth since the last time Severus had seen him; his head came nearer Severus's chin, even sitting, than expected. But it was not enough to change the boyish look in his eyes. "You already made me swear an Unbreakable Vow! What more do you want?"

            "This is not a Vow," Severus said coldly. "This is a promise, and as conducive as the Vow will be to keeping peace among my people. Remember that you must dwell among us for the rest of your life, and that we can make your stay here every bit as unpleasant as the war was."

            Potter sank back on the bed, his head hanging. He was trying to keep up his defiant posture, but Severus knew the edge of defiance breaking well from his time with Draco. "You're not," he said, and then hissed out a long, rattling sigh of air. "I promise, all right?"

            Severus eyed him. Now he thought it was the man he had mistaken for existing. Potter the sulky sixteen-year-old sat there, and never mind the three years that had passed since then.

            "Very well," he said, when he had waited some time and Potter had not looked at him again. "See that you keep your word."

            And he swept out, mind already on more agreeable matters as he moved.

*

            Harry waited until he was sure Snape was gone to look up and smile at the door.

            It had worked. He had lied to the master liar, manipulated the master manipulator.

            Harry leaned back on the bed, chuckling, and stretched his legs out. He was beyond grateful now--though he hadn't felt that way at the time--that Hermione had made him sit down not long after the war began and work out his hatred for Snape. It was a weakness, she argued, for him to obsess over the man like he did, and want to know why he betrayed Dumbledore, and ask over and over again how the Half-Blood Prince had become him. If they faced Snape in battle again, it could make Harry want to talk to him, the way he had when they met in battle before the school, instead of just kill him. And killing Snape would always be safer than talking to him.

            Harry had figured out that he hated Snape the most for being so good up to a certain point, always defying Harry's suspicions when he thought he was in the wrong, and then turning evil. Harry had finally found out about the Unbreakable Vow Snape had sworn to Dumbledore from a Pensieve that Dumbledore had sent to him via delayed owl post, and that did put a few things in perspective.

            But even if Snape had killed Dumbledore for good reasons, that didn't give him a good reason for fighting and killing Order members, or for taking over the Death Eaters and turning them into the Ashborn. And if Harry would never feel neutral about him, at least he had figured out, finally, that Snape hated him more than Harry could ever hate him after he learned about the Vow.

            That meant Harry could use the hatred to blind him. Snape thought he was a child? He would act like one, and Snape would look no further. He thought that Harry couldn't understand complex magical concepts? Harry would ramble on as though he hadn't, and Snape would be satisfied because that confirmed his prejudices.

            So Harry hadn't revealed just what the book had taught him about the raven, and Snape hadn't thought to ask. And Snape had made him promise to have no contact with magical creatures if they came to him.

            He hadn't said a thing about Harry reaching out first.

            Harry drew his wand and balanced it in the middle of his palm, closing his eyes. The book he'd read had been a standard magical creatures tome throughout most of the chapters, but the last was about Scamander's obsession with communicating with other beings. Some of them, like the centaurs, spoke English but in such a riddling fashion it was hard to understand them; others, like the merfolk, had their own language or, like dragons, entirely different brains.

            Scamander had created a spell that he said might work, the incantation literally Latin for "I speak with the animals." But his own attempts to cast it had failed. Defeated, Scamander had admitted that it might take someone who had magical creature heritage to make it work.

            Or, Harry thought, another advantage that lends itself to communication with other beings.

            Like Parseltongue.

            "Loquor animalibus," he whispered, and his wand shook on his hand and a silent wind passed out of his body and struck the wall.

            Harry slumped back on his bed with a gasp. He could feel his body all around him, and the walls of his prison, but part of his consciousness was also beyond them, in the clean air, riding the wind that he had summoned and sent to find either the raven or the ones who commanded the raven.

            He didn't know what would result from this. He did know that it was either do something to keep himself occupied or go mad. And this wasn't against his Vows.

            The war had taught him patience, along with so many other things. He closed his eyes and waited to see what the morning would bring.

*

            unneeded: You're welcome! I hope you continue enjoying.

            Myniephoenix: Thank you for reviewing.

            Orkchild: Thanks!

            cinder1013: Draco is going to get a lot more frustrated before it's all over, promise.

            Echo: Don't worry, this will be a long one. It's troubling to think of how long, actually.

            fudge: Thanks!

            AlterEquis: Thanks, I won't give up.

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            Yami Bakura: Thank you. More details will come out about the setup, so I hope you continue to find it credible.

            Amber: Don't worry, I plan to update every Monday.
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Ashborn